New Publication: A Novel Procedure for Rapid Imaging of Adult Mouse Brains with μCT Using Iodine-Based Contrast

Comparisons of MRI to diceCT mouse brains (left), showing displacement heat maps (right). Gray areas in the heat map indicate regions of large differences (>0.5 mm) either due to extreme shrinkage or difference in segmentation.

“Phenotypic screens for brain defects traditionally used either histology or high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look for structural abnormalities. The former is tedious and slow, while the latter is expensive. By coupling the excellent contrast offered by the iodine with the tissue preserving properties of hydrogel, we demonstrate that whole mouse brains can be effectively and rapidly imaged by μCT at a fraction of a cost of high-resolution MRI. Our methodology is best suited for rapid phenotyping applications where large numbers of samples need to be screened for gross differences in the overall brain shape using computational morphometric approaches.”